The Mill and the Cross

UK premiere

Visionary director Lech Majewski’s adaptation of Pieter Bruegel’s legendary 1564 painting 'Way to Calvary', based on Michael Francis Gibson's book 'The Mill and the Cross', stars Charlotte Rampling, Michael York, and Rutger Hauer as Bruegel.

The film is a visually stunning interpretation of the famous Bruegel masterpiece that embraces a daunting challenge: how to make Bruegel's panoramic masterpiece, with its hundreds of characters and dark pastoral, come alive on screen in authentic locations, all while honouring Flemish history and the Bibical story itself as the artist depicted it. In achieving so much, the film ingeniously replicates the painting itself – the characters and pastoral sweep, the buildings and quaint walled city, the invading Spanish militia and the crucifixion of Christ.

With sparse dialogue and the occasional voiceover, the film tells its story visually, taking viewers inside the peasant huts, along the cobbled town streets and past stone buildings where the Spanish troops might be roaming. Proof of the film’s power is that some of its imagery – whether dreamscape or detail – stays with the viewer. Majewski also gives life to sounds, be they nature’s or man’s doing.

'The Mill and the Cross' is part of the 10th KINOTEKA Polish Film Festival

Image above: Detail from ‘The Mill and the Cross’. Credit/source KINOTEKA